Pro Rail Academy is being planned as somewhere businesses, researchers and educators can work on infrastructure problems together. Alongside the training facilities in County Mayo, we’ll offer applied research, product testing and technology trials to Irish companies working in rail, water, energy, utilities and construction.
We want to hear from Irish businesses developing solutions for the rail, water, energy, utilities, construction and wider infrastructure sectors. You might have a product that’s ready to trial, a prototype that needs evaluating in realistic conditions, or an operational problem that needs research and specialist expertise before you can solve it.
The Academy’s planned facilities include classrooms, technical workshops, practical rail infrastructure, drainage and surveying areas, digital learning spaces and demonstration areas. Together they give businesses a controlled setting for trialling equipment, running demonstrations and evaluating prototypes, with trainers and industry specialists on hand who use this kind of equipment every day. Testing on a training site also means you can prove an idea works before it goes anywhere near a live railway.
Pro Rail Academy intends to build close links with Atlantic Technological University (ATU), combining the Academy’s industry-led facilities and sector knowledge with ATU’s academic expertise, research capability and wider enterprise network.
ATU also offers business incubation, mentoring and enterprise support through its Innovation Hubs. You can read more about that, and about the grants available for research and innovation projects, on our Innovation page.
If you have a product, technology or idea that could improve how infrastructure is designed, built, monitored, maintained or operated, we’d like to hear about it. The same goes if you have a challenge on site that needs proper research, testing or specialist expertise.
